Bhay Ho, sings BJP

Ever since Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars, it’s been hard to ignore the catchy Jai Ho. The Congress made it its theme for the elections and now the BJP has gone ahead and created a parody of it. It’s called Bhay Ho (let fear prevail)! Shekhar Iyer reports.

Ever since

HT Image

Slumdog Millionaire

swept the Oscars, it’s been hard to ignore the catchy

Jai Ho

. The Congress made it its theme for the elections and now the BJP has gone ahead and created a parody of it. It’s called

Bhay Ho

(let fear prevail)!

There’s a video to go with it too. BJP spokesperson Siddharth Nath Singh said, “The video is not an official one. It was sent to us by a party sympathiser. This song depicts the real situation of the country. It says... Bhay (fear) ho... bhook (hunger) ho... atank (terror) ho... mahangayi (inflation) ho... phir bhi jai ho.”

Like the original, the parody video features street children from Hyderabad, singing the song in the general compartment of a train while a stranger plants a bomb in the coach.

“The artists are street singers, Nagarjun and Durga, and they are already into the job of taking the message to different areas with this song even before it is unveiled here,” Singh said.

That’s not the BJP’s only lyrical boost to its campaign. A.B. Vajpayee is making a comeback via his speeches, which will figure in the party’s campaign films. A film on Team Advani features the BJP’s PM candidate and its “galaxy” of second-line leaders — Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi and Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The film opens with Vajpayee’s 1980 speech “Andhera chattega, Kamal khilega (darkness will disappear and the lotus will bloom)” — delivered at the foundation function of the party.